Fifth Time's A Charm
by a slice of heaven
Summary: How many times had he told her loved her? More Lily/James fluff.
1. Chapter 1

__Chapter One:

_The first time he told her he loved her, it'd been a joke._

"Hey Potter," Sirius Black, his first friend at Hogwarts, let out a low whistle and nudged him while they were sitting in the common room, lowly third years shoved to the hard wooden chairs near the dorm entrances, trying to look as cool as the godly seventh years who hung around the fireplace. "Look at that bird."

James looked up and over at the other side of the room. A group of girls from their year were gathered around a table, giggling over something. "Which one?"

"Red hair," Sirius said, winking approvingly at one of the prettier girls who'd given him a scathing look when she'd noticed him staring. The girl, who he remembered was in the Quidditch team with James and had a name that started with 'C', glared at him and turned back to her friends.

James spotted the redhead, quite oblivious to Sirius' attempting to flirt with the dark-haired girl. The girl had crazy red hair, even redder than his mother's, and super cool emerald green eyes. "Pretty, what about her?"

Sirius grinned quite evilly for a thirteen year old. "Go tell her you love her."

"Balls, I'm not doing that," James protested, ignoring a second year who'd walked past him and flashed them a dazzling smile. It was at times like this that James quite regretted having Sirius Black as his best mate.

"Fine then, I dare you. Ask her to marry you," Sirius smirked.

It was so ridiculous that James had to agree. "Done, what's her name?"

"Evans," Sirius replied, thinking hard. "She's smart as hell. Binns loves her to bits, won't stop saying her name in History. Ms Evans this, Ms Evans that. She seems like a snot. Can't do any harm."

"Done."

_That hadn't ended particularly well. Lily Evans had slapped him, stalked off with her friend, who'd shot another withering glare at Sirius, and sent a Bat Bogey Hex flying in their general direction, much to the amusement of the present occupants of the common room._

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><p><em><em>Okay according to my friend who wrote this, it will be in five parts!


	2. Chapter 2

I'm bored, so here you are. Second chapter.

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><p>Chapter Two:<p>

The_ second time, sometime mid fourth year, it'd been a mistake._

"Marlene is so pretty," James said adoringly, gazing at the McKinnon girl. Sirius shuddered.

They were in the library, which they had taken to stalking since James' rather extreme crush on Marlene McKinnon after seeing her beat up Lucius Malfoy and his annoying cronies. Sirius saw Evans and her pretty friend whose name started with 'C' (as he now identified her) there quite a lot too, unsurprisingly.

"You can do better than McKinnon, Prongs," Sirius said, looking bored, charming a paper airplane to float around his head. It wasn't that he didn't like Marlene, but Remus had dibs on that girl.

"But Marlene's so cool," James repeated dreamily. Sirius slammed his head down on the desk in exasperation, earning himself a glare from the librarian, a stick-insect-like woman with hair a meter high, and decided he'd sleep free block away.

Two shelves away, Marlene got up, tying her long reddish-brown (and lethal, James remembered) hair up absentmindedly and disappeared in between two shelves.

Eagerly, James hopped to his feet, his chair scraping the floor noisily and he cursed to himself. This was his chance! After two weeks of pining after her and three failed attempts to get her to go out with him, he could finally tell her that he liked her.

If she wasn't going to listen to him, the only thing he could do was sneak up on her and confess.

The library was one of his least favourite places in the castle, or had been up till now. For one, the lighting was terrible. The windows were all tinted or painted glass, so the light was either colourful and completely unnatural, or just non-existent. What kind of insane library, James thought as he crept along the shelves, had lighting so bad you couldn't read?

He turned into a shelf and spotted Marlene, her back to him, putting books back on a shelf, looking graceful as ever. He took a deep breath, walked up to her, tapped her on the shoulder, and the moment she turned around, said quickly, "I love you."

That's when he realized it wasn't Marlene, it was Lily Evans.

Library. Marlene. Brown hair. Bad lighting. Red hair. Evans. "Oh shit."

_Evans had gave him an amused look, obviously having heard of his crush on Marlene (he doubted anyone hadn't), and pointed in the direction she'd gone. Then she patted him on the back, and walked off to meet Christa Finnegan, his Quidditch teammate, who grinned at him as they walked off._

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><p>R&amp;R sweeties.<p> 


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